In acknowledgement of Black History Month, The Royal Gazette continues the publication of stories throughout February on African-American, Black Bermudian and global African people, events and institutions, and their contributions in history

The Detroit Walk To Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement that took place on June 23, 1963, in Detroit, Michigan. It drew an estimated 125,000 participants and spectators, which made it the single largest civil rights demonstration in the nation’s history before the March on Washington in August that year.

The march was organised by the Reverend Clarence LaVaughn Franklin, the father of singer Aretha Franklin, and the Reverend Albert B. Cleage. Franklin and Cleage, and other organisers for the Detroit Council for Human Rights, planned the march. Cleage originally wanted the march to be all-Black and led by Black people only. The Detroit branch of the National Association for the Advancement for Coloured People threatened to boycott the march if the DCHR did not include local White leaders in the march.

The Detroit Walk To Freedom had three goals. The first purpose was to speak out against segregation and the brutality that civil rights activists regularly experienced in the South. It also addressed concerns in the urban North, including employment, housing discrimination and de facto school segregation. The march was intended to raise funds and awareness for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The date of June 23, 1963 was chosen because it was the 20th anniversary of the Detroit Race Riot of 1943.

The majority of the marchers were Black, but there were prominent White participants, including former Michigan governor John Swainson, Detroit mayor Jerome Cavanagh, Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, and Billie S. Farnum, the state auditor-general. The Governor of Michigan at the time, George Romney, said that he was unable to attend the march because it took place on a Sunday and conflicted with his Church of Latter-day Saints’ religious practices.

The march started at about 3pm on Woodward Avenue and Adelaide, and continued along Jefferson and concluded at Cobo Arena and Hall. Songs such as The Battle Hymn of the Republic were sung during the march, and people carried banners and signs. The march lasted about 90 minutes and was highlighted by a speech from the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, which many would recall later as similar to his I Have a Dream speech at the March on Washington. Other speakers included congressman Charles Diggs, Cleage, Reuther and Swainson. Detroit-based Motown Records president Berry Gordy received permission from King to record his speech, with the royalties going to the SCLC.

Approximately 20,000 people participated in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Detroit Walk To Freedom on June 15, 2013, including Martin Luther King III, Detroit mayor Dave Bing, and the reverends Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Source:

Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York Penguin Random House, 2008; “Detroit Walk To Freedom,” https://www.clickondetroit.com/features/2020/01/20/mlk-day-remembering-detroits-1963-walk-to-freedom-march/; “Detroit Walk To Freedom” Fox 2, Detroit, https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/detroit-walk-to-freedom-in-june-1963-with-martin-luther-king-jr-is-historic-moment-that-still-resonates